


You Won't Find it Again

by ChampagneCorkForest



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Ableism, Angst, Blind Character, Depression, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Sad Ending, Secret Relationship, Suicidal Thoughts, wwi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 14:09:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2814803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChampagneCorkForest/pseuds/ChampagneCorkForest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In war sometimes things happens very quickly, because there is no time for them to happen slowly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Won't Find it Again

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like this needs an extra TW for some pretty heavy internalized ableism. 
> 
> The title is a Go-Betweens song, and not a comment on Thomas's prospects, though I suppose it is fairly accurate as far as Edward is concerned.

 

Day 1

Thomas loved Edward almost immediately. He was beautiful, of course, but Thomas has seen many beautiful men. He had seen too many of them die, and too many broken by grief and disease. But Edward's was an otherworldly sort of beauty; Thomas could almost believe that he was more beautiful now than he ever had been, thin as a ghost with those pale sightless eyes staring out from a nest of scars, as if into the future. If there even was a future to look into.

Edward still wished that he had died on the battlefield, that he hadn't been cursed to live out this half life of dependence and confusion. He would have done it that first night, the first chance he got, had it not been for Thomas. The way Thomas spoke to him. It was the first thing since he was gassed that could draw his thoughts away from death, the first time in a long time he was curious about something.

Edward's vulnerability was something Thomas found deeply compelling, though he could not think why. All the men here were so vulnerable, as vulnerable to infection and despair as they had been to bullets. But Edward's vulnerability touched some sweet thing inside him he had long buried within himself.

Thomas was so kind, and no one else could see it. Edward mentioned in passing to one of the nurses that Thomas was kind, as close to small talk as he could muster, and she had laughed in surprise. “If he's kind to you I dare say you're the only one,” she'd said. Sometimes he had overheard the curt way Thomas spoke to the other medics, the odd snide remark about doctor Clarkson when he was safely out of earshot, but that was so little of the whole of him. With Edward he exuded kindness, expecting nothing in return.

Mostly Thomas loved how Edward had spoken to him as an equal, not as though infirmary had lowered him to Thomas's level, or that Thomas, with his scant medical knowledge, was now his master, but simply as if they were and always had been equals. The way he had so readily offered his hand.

The thing Edward liked best about Thomas was that he didn't pity him at all.

 

Day 2

It isn't enough, Edward told himself. He could tell that Thomas was in love with him, was half in love himself, but it wasn't enough to commit himself to living. When had love ever solved anything? Particularly his sort of love. Their sort. It would have been kinder to keep it hidden away, more noble. Thomas was trying, he expected nothing. “He loves me silently, and without hope,” Edward whispered to himself, recalling a line out of Pushkin. He'd thought it a bit of Russian melodrama at the time, to be so ostentatious with one's misery. But Thomas wasn't ostentatious at all, he was only a little bit indiscreet, and Edward couldn't bear it any longer.

“Are we alone?” he asked, as they sat on the sundeck taking the air.

“No, there's nurse Stevens by the doorway,” Thomas had answered, but he gripped Edward's hand very tightly.

Thomas had his suspicions, but he couldn't be sure. He couldn't just try it on with Edward like he had with so many other men. He didn't fear rejection so much, or even prison-- a gentleman, he knew from experience, would do almost anything to avoid the embarrassment of a scandal. But Edward depended on him and if he was wrong, that special bond between them would be destroyed. What would Edward have then? What would either of them have?

So many, he now realized, of the almost imperceptible signals and tell he was forever on the look out for were down to the eyes. The way a man looked at him, or made a show of not looking. And what did Thomas have aside from his looks? No one had ever wanted him for his personality. No, all those little touches, the way Edward reached out for him when they spoke, they were only his way of orienting himself in his world of darkness. He was an anchor without which Edward was lost at sea, and that would have to be enough.

 

Day 3

It wasn't until the next day that they were able to go for a walk. Edward hung heavily on Thomas's shoulder as if he were lame, though he could walk perfectly well on his own, had he been able to see where he was going. He asked if they could go somewhere private and Thomas held him tightly, his arm around Edward's waist.

“What're ye taken him into the woods for?” a woman's voice called out, one of the nurses though he could not remember her name. “He'll trip on a log and break his poor neck!”

“He needs practice with his stick, and anyhow he's got me to keep him from doing himself a mischief!” Thomas called over his shoulder, without stopping to consider her warning.

“What did you want to tell me yesterday?” Thomas asked urgently, once they had been walking a good ten minutes. The woods were difficult to navigate, but with Thomas's help it was not impossible.

“Might we sit down?” Edward asked. Inching his way across uneven ground was exhausting.

“Of course,” Thomas said, leading him to a fallen log and helping him to sit down on it. Thomas's thigh brushed his own as he sat down beside him. He was very quiet then. He was waiting for an answer.

Edward reached out for Thomas with both hands, not to take his hand or his shoulders but to touch his face. When he found it Thomas reached up and touched Edward's wrists, but he did not pull away.

“You're very handsome,” Edward said.

“You can tell just from that?” Thomas asked, surprised but entirely credulous.

“No. I've heard the nurses talking about you,” he answered.

“Oh. I wouldn't listen to what they say,” Thomas said.

“I believe them. Sometimes I wish I didn't.”

“Why's that?” Thomas asked, as if he still hadn't figured out what this was about.

“I'd give both my legs just to see your face,” Edward said.

“Then you'd be sorry,” Thomas answered. “Anyhow, I'm no handsomer than you are.”

Edward's face turned hard. “Don't lie to me Barrow. I know I've been horribly scarred.”

“You've scars but they don't make a bit of difference,” Thomas said, and Edward could tell from the sound of his voice that for Thomas at least it was true.

“Are you sure no one can see us?” Edward asked, and felt Thomas's head turn back towards the hospital.

“There's no one,” Thomas said, and Edward moved his face back in line with his own and kissed him. He almost slipped off the log leaning forward but Thomas held him steady.

“I'd thought maybe,” Thomas whispered, “But I couldn't be sure.”

 

Day 4

Edward was starting to get used to his cane, but he wasn't about to refuse Thomas's arm around his shoulder. They could walk like this without anyone batting an eye, but every time he tried to convince himself it was a consolation he remembered that he had never seen Thomas's face, and he never would, a fact that had made him weep more than once.

“I've got something for you,” Thomas said, pressing a small metal object into Edward's free hand. “A surprise.”

“A key?” Edward could tell by the shape of it. “What is it too?” It was warm. Thomas must have been clutching it in his pocket all day.

“My palace,” he laughed, before bending close to whisper into his ear. “It's only a potting shed, but it's private.”

“Take me,” Edward said, holding out the key and waiting for Thomas to take it, which he did swiftly, before anyone could see.

They walked around the side of the hospital, across the grounds. When they stopped Edward could feel Thomas's muscles shift as he turned to look around to make sure they hadn't been seen. One of the things that drove him mad was that he could never tell when someone was looking at him. He had started to feel like he was being watched all the time, could never be sure if he was alone. He tried to listen for footsteps, and in the hospital it more or less worked, not that he was ever really alone there, but outside he couldn't distinguish the sound of someone walking through the grass from the everyday nature sounds. But Thomas seemed experienced enough, and he trusted he wouldn't lead them into danger.

Thomas unlocked the shed and then led him in, eagerly locking the door behind them. It was cold in the shed. Edward supposed it was dark.

“Are there windows?” Edward asked.

“Just one, and it's too filthy to see into,” Thomas answered. “I made sure.”

Edward felt around with his cane. There was something about half a foot high in front of them.

“It's a sack of potting soil,” Thomas explained, helping him to sit down on top of it. “Not very soft, but it's better than the floor. I put a tarp over it so it wouldn't soil our clothes.”

“You've thought of everything,” Edward said, as Thomas sat down beside him, very close. They kissed for a long time, not hurriedly like they had before, in the woods, terrified that someone might come looking for them. He moved his hand across Thomas's chest until he found the buttons of his tunic and began, clumsily, to undo them.

Thomas made an almost inaudible sound of pleasure and then returned the favor, unbuttoning Edward's uniform shirt as he kissed down his neck, to his collarbone. The buttons only went halfway down and they didn't dare undress fully, but Edward pulled Thomas's shirt from his trousers, worked his fingers beneath his undershirt, finding at last his surprisingly hairy chest. He felt around the circumference of the sack with his other hand, trying to determine if there was enough room to lie down.

“What're you doing,” Thomas whispered, missing his other hand, so Edward took the chance and laid back, pulling Thomas down on top of him. There was just enough space if they didn't mind their legs dangling off the side.

He held Thomas close, under his clothes. The smell of the soil was earthy and pleasant, along with the smell of Thomas, musk and moderately priced tobacco. He was painfully hard and Thomas was hard too, pressed up against his thigh. Edward moved against him and Thomas moved a little bit away, undoing both of their trousers and pushing them down a little, out of the way.

They did it Oxford style, Thomas's cock between his thighs, perhaps because he had told Thomas that he was an Oxford man. It was quick and desperate but no less intense. Edward thought that he could feel everything much more keenly than when he could see, the rub of his own cock against Thomas's stomach, Thomas's insistent thrusting, his arms wrapped so tightly around his shoulders. He was trembling. He had to bite his tongue to keep from crying out as he came.

When it was over Thomas cleaned them off with a handkerchief, which he hid under something that made a scrapping noise when he moved it.

“What if someone finds it?” Edward asked.

“Anyone could have been wanking off in here, it weren't monogrammed,” Thomas assured him. “If they can even tell what it's soiled with.” He kissed him again, softly this time, and did up his clothes quick and efficiently. He'd been a valet before the war, or so he'd said. He ran a hand through Edward's hair, the good one.

Edward felt around for his other hand which Thomas, noticing, offered to him. It made him uncomfortable to think that Thomas was looking at him when he couldn't look back. He thought he might be blushing. Probably it was too dark to tell, but he began to turn his face away.

“You don't... regret it?” Thomas asked, sounding totally devastated.

“No! Oh no,” he answered, bringing Thomas's gloved hand to his lips. He reached out for Thomas's face and found it, soft skin and stubble and beneath it bone. He wished he did know how to translate it all into a picture in his head. “You've made me very happy.” He felt the muscles shift beneath his fingertips and he though perhaps Thomas was smiling.

 

Day 5

“It'll be alright,” Thomas said, gripping his hand. He sat as close to him as they dared in the hospital. “You'll go home in a few months and I'll follow you. I'll be your valet, I'll look after you.”

Edward had managed to keep it together in front of Dr. Clarkson, when he had told him they were sending him away, that they had done all they could, but now he was having one of his silent terrors. He felt as though he were making a scene, but only Thomas, sat so close beside him, could tell that he was trembling.

“You said you'd never go back to that life, you'd never be a servant again. You told me,” he said, only a bit too loud.

“It'd be different with you,” Thomas said quietly.

“It wouldn't be, though,” he answered, whispering now. “Only when we were alone. The rest of the time it would be just the same. It would have to be.”

“Still. It wouldn't matter. Because...” He couldn't say it because someone might be listening, but of course he didn't need to.

“They won't let you go, anyhow. You're too valuable here, not like me.”

“Then we'll wait until the war is over, but this isn't goodbye,” Thomas insisted.

“Don't you see? The war's never going to end! It's just going to go on and on forever until everyone's dead.”

“They can't make us fight now, not in the state we're in,” Thomas said.

“They won't have to send us back. It'll be here soon, I know it will. All the mud and the death, the skies full of bombers. We can't escape it.” He knew he sounded hysterical, but in his heart he knew it was true.

“You can't know that,” Thomas pleaded, but he didn't sound so sure himself.

“I can't go on waiting for something that's never going to happen.”

“I've been waiting for this,” Thomas said, squeezing his hand, “for what feels like my whole life, and I never thought it would happen, not really. I'll wait as long as it takes to get it back.” Edward was crying now, silent tears that burned the flesh around his useless eyes.

“You don't know what it's like, hours upon hours of nothing. I'm not as brave as you, I can't face it.”

“I'm not brave,” Thomas answered. Edward thought he was crying too now, there was a quaver in his voice. “Please don't mistake me for someone what's brave.”

“I'm sorry,” Edward said, hoping Thomas would think he was apologizing for his tears, for calling Thomas 'brave' when the word had some unknown but terrible association for him, and not for what he was really sorry for, for was what he was going to do.

It wasn't that Thomas wasn't worth waiting for, Edward simply didn't have the strength. It was hard enough as it was now, with Thomas busy most of the day. The prospect of all those months, years, stretched out featureless before him, before they would either be reunited or flattened by a German bomb, was torturous. Far better to go out now, with Thomas's voice still echoing in his head like a bell. Before it began to fade like the voices of all the boys he's seen killed in the trenches.

 


End file.
